


Secrets To Keep You Safe

by Weevilo707



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Aasimar Angus, Angus is a literal Angel Child, Character Study, Found Family, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 20:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12755631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Angus had always been told by his grandpa (Granilespa, the Deva that watched out for him and guided him) to keep his true nature a secret. It could draw unwanted attention and put him in danger if the wrong people found out. That had been an easy rule to follow for a long time.And then he made a new family, and he didn't want to keep secrets from them anymore.





	Secrets To Keep You Safe

Angus found out he was different when he was eight years old. 

Well he sort of knew before then, he was a very smart little boy who could piece those kind of things together. He knew when people looked at him they could tell there was something strange there, although he couldn't tell what it was they saw. He knew he had a knack for finding his way into bad situations, often times only getting out of them by what would see like incredible strokes of luck. He became a little less reliant on that luck as he got older and managed to find his _own_ solutions.

He knew that other people didn’t get visions, and a kind voice guiding them towards an implacable desire to get out, to see the world. 

When he’d talk about those things to his parents, his mother would hold him close, go on about how proud she was of her little angel. His father wouldn’t say much, but he always seemed concerned. He’d warn Angus about how you could only help others if you made sure to keep yourself safe first. That made sense to him, so he listened to his parents. He’d stay home and immerse himself in books, Caleb Cleveland being his favorite, and fantasize about being the one to be able to go out there one day and take down the bad guys. 

And then when he was eight, Angus finally had a word for what exactly was different about him. He remembered the bone devil shouting, his mother casting an invisibility spell on him, telling him to run, not to look back. He hadn’t wanted to, but both his mother and the soft voice was demanding that he _go._ So he ran, the clacking voice of the bone devil demanding the ‘Aasimar child’ fading behind him. 

He did end up coming back, days later once the fighting seemed to have finished and all of the devils gone. There wasn’t anything left though. He never managed to find his parents, and something told him that was probably a good thing, that he wouldn’t have wanted to see what had happened to them. Picking through the remains of his home, he gathered up what he could. Clothes, money, his favorite books, and then he left. 

It didn’t take Angus too long to figure out what the bone devil had meant by Aasimar. Scrounging through books in a library several towns over from where he used to live, he managed to find one in a language he’d never seen before. Despite that, the words came through clear as day, and it spoke of beings born to humans, infused with divine powers and watched over by angelic guides. It talked about how they were rare, how they’re destined to do good in the world, how evil would be drawn to try to stop them. 

Angus kept the book, determined to live up to every word. 

Of course, he was still a very little boy, and his father’s words were still on his mind. You can’t help others unless you keep yourself safe. So he started small, just trying to put as much good into the world as he could. 

When he was nine, the soft voice truly revealed itself to him for the first time. It was indeed a Deva, and it was watching after him. It’s name was Granilespa, and it warned Angus to keep his true nature a secret, for risk of others like the bone devil to come after him again while he was still so young. Angus had asked if he could call him Grandpa, if anyone asked. The Deva had laughed and said that was quite alright. 

After that Angus had begun to feel his guide more clearly. He found himself drawn to unsolved mysteries, and he had a knack for figuring them out. Angus had dreamed about being a detective ever since he’d first read the Caleb Cleveland novels, and he was glad that his guide seemed to be on the same page. He never helped Angus actually solve the mysteries, but Angus preferred it that way. He was a great detective, and it wasn’t because anyone was helping him. 

He was ten when his life changed completely once again. 

‘Grandpa’ had urged him to get onto the Rockport Limited, and so Angus started his usual routine of figuring out what it was that was wrong. It didn’t take him long at all to find out about the Rockport slayer, and soon enough he managed to convince the authorities to let him on the case. 

It had seemed like a pretty normal case at first, and Angus had played up the unsuspecting little kid to those three suspicious men (maybe a little bit too much, because they seemed to realize something was up right away) but as time went on things got stranger. There was something there, and Angus couldn’t understand what those three said when they talked about it. They managed to solve the actual crime, but Angus was left with questions pulling at him and a desire to go after Magnus, Merle and Taako that seemed to be more than just his Deva’s normal urging. 

When he started looking into the forgotten missing persons reports, he felt like he was close to something big. The dreams sent by his Deva had fallen into blurs of static, and when an older woman with a kind smile and sad eyes asked him if he was Angus McDonald, the world’s greatest detective, he felt like he had nothing to hide. He _knew_ this was what he was being called towards. The nausea and dizziness that swarmed around him as he was led through the base didn’t matter, because _this_ was how he was going to do good. 

He drank the voidfish’s ichor, and the static visions of his dreams back into perfect clarity. Entire cities brought down in flames, nature wielded by man into an unstoppable force, the power to create anything at a whim, people and towns and lives turned indiscriminately into gold or diamond or peppermint candy. A war that was forgotten and could be restarted again if the proper precautions weren’t taken. 

Angus was downright _giddy_ to join the bureau. 

He finally felt like he was doing the good he was supposed to. He was sure his guardian was proud of him. He was proud, he was helping to save the entire world. 

After a while though (not a while, it happened very quickly) it started to become more than that. The bureau had begun to become his home, and he cared about the people there so much. The reclaimers, they teased and prodded him, but they were good people, Angus could tell. Magnus’s teasing became playful, and Taako started teaching him magic, without him even asking. Merle opened up some after Angus found out about his children. Whenever they would go out on missions, Angus would be terrified that they wouldn’t returned. 

It wasn’t just them too, the rest of the people at the bureau quickly came to mean something to him. Carey and Killian would play with him, letting him ride up on their shoulders. Leon had gotten him his wand, and Johann had started to teach him how to play a few instruments. 

The director, she would look after him, care for him in a way that almost reminded him of his mother. She’d make sure he didn’t work himself too hard, would usher him off to bed if she found him dozing off in some book. Assured him that Taako, Merle and Magnus would be alright whenever he worried about them on missions. 

The Bureau of Balance had become his family, and Angus hated that he was keeping something so big about himself from his family. 

Even still, when they did find out it wasn’t because Angus had intended for them to. 

He’d gone on a trip with Magnus, Merle and Taako down to Neverwinter. It was supposed to be a nice little day out, since they hadn’t gotten one lately with how much their training had increased. It was just that for the most part, things had only taken a bad turn when they started towards the outskirts of the city in order to head back. It wasn’t a real good idea to call a pod down in the middle of the city if they could help it after all. 

Angus was pretty sure they would’ve been able to deal with the Barbed Devils and Vrocks a lot better if they hadn’t managed to sneak up on them. They had though, and Angus listened to the older men when they ordered him to stay back and out of sight. 

Angus could remember broken buildings and cackling devils and ‘you can’t help others if you don’t keep yourself safe first.' So he watched from the shadows of an alleyway and told himself they didn’t need his help. They’d be okay. He needed to stay safe so he could do good in the world. Needed to keep himself a secret. 

And then he saw Merle surrounded by spiked devils, Magnus trapped under the talons of the Vrock. Saw Taako’s arm get snapped up by its beak, blood and it biting down like it intended to take the whole thing off to keep the wizard from firing another spell. 

The next thing Angus knew he was up above the creatures and his friends, Celestial flying from his lips as he sent a spell cackling with divine energy. The blast knocked the Vrock away from from Taako and Magnus, creating enough of a distraction for Merle to turn several of the barbed devils to dust with his own holy spell. 

It was quick work after that, and Angus used up nearly every spell slot he had to render these creatures to a smoldering mass. 

He didn’t realize the way those three were staring at him until everything was dead and he lowered back to the ground, the wings behind him dispersing and the light fading from his eyes. They just _stared_ at him, and Angus tried to say something but his words failed him. 

“Neat uh, neat spell ya got there. Don’t remember teaching you um, teaching you that one,” Taako finally said at last and Angus pulled his hat down to hide his face some, embarrassed beyond belief. 

“You didn’t,” he mumbled, and he heard of certain types of Aasimar being able to do things like that, but he’d never tried to before. He didn’t know he could. 

“Angus…” Magnus started, speaking quietly and with wonder in his voice. “What the _fuck?!”_ aaand now it was gone. 

“Um, I mean, it’s just something I can uh, do, apparently. I swear it’s not like, a big deal sirs, please don’t tell anyone,” he said quickly, pretty sure they weren’t going to believe him. From the looks on their faces scratch that, he was positive they weren’t going to believe him. 

“Ango, you grew wings! And your eyes were all glowy and shit!” Taako said. 

“You looked like Della Reese,” Merle added and Angus shrunk in on himself even more. 

“I’m an Aasimar,” he mumbled, because there was definitely no getting around it now. 

“You’re an ass?” Magnus asked, sounding confused. 

_“You’re_ an ass, let the kid explain,” Taako cut in. 

“It’s Aasimar, and um, we’re just like normal human people but uh, also kinda maybe a little bit part angel? It’s really not a big deal, I didn’t even know I could do most of that,” he told them, and at least the three looked a little less freaked out now. Still obviously confused but a little less so. 

“Well, why didn’t you ever _say_ anything?” Merle asked. 

“My grandpa tells me not to let anyone know, because it could draw unwanted attention,” he explained. He quickly noticed the looks they gave each other at that, but he was telling the truth so he wasn’t sure what the problem was. 

“Angus, I thought your grandpa died?” Magnus asked, and oh yeah. 

“I mean, he did. He used to tell me that,” he tried to amend, but they could see through him. He was good at lying, but not to them. He didn’t _want_ to lie to them. 

“Pumpkin, is your grandpa a real person?” Taako asked, and Angus really hadn’t meant to have all of this come out at once. 

“Depending on your definition of person?” he tried, not surprised by the groans that got out of all of them. 

“Okay, we’re heading back to the base, and you’re explaining everything going on with your weird angel powers,” Magnus said, starting to herd all four of them further out into the fields outside of the city. 

“But sirs! It could be really dangerous if the wrong people found out about this,” he tried to argue, but Taako just waved away his concern. 

“Kid, pretty sure you’re already tied up in some pretty dangerous shit. Besides, did you _see_ how you just laid waste to those fuckers? Anyone coming at you ain’t gonna be able to do shit,” he said, and Angus couldn’t help but smile at the praise. 

As they went up to the moon base, Angus resolved to tell the rest of the bureau about this. He knew there were dangers involved, but he trusted them, and he didn’t want to keep secrets from his family anymore. He didn’t want to just stay in the back and say that was his way of doing good. 

And a few months later, when the Deva he’d followed his whole life told him to investigate the mystery of the bureau he’d listen. He’d follow that pull, because it had never led him astray before, but he’d keep his trust in his family. 

They had never led him astray either.

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm very sick and got the idea for Aasimar Angus today and just kinda scribbled this one out. He's the goodest purest boy. An actual angel and i'm love him


End file.
